In a Box
by HoldoutTrout
Summary: Miss Parker gets trapped in an elevator with annoyingly cheerful people. Pointless and fluffy without being romantic.


**Hell in a Box**

Disclaimer: Pretender, alas, is not mine. I don't make any money from this, which is even more unfortunate.

Author's note: Pretender, my love. Here I am again, at the mercy of Thy plot bunnies.

* * *

Miss Parker was in hell. This was normal. 

Hell looked like a box with dim lighting and insufferably cheerful people. The box part was normal. The cheerful people were…slightly unusual.

Miss Parker was used to dealing with hell in a box every day—every time she got into an elevator.

Elevators. She was stuck in an elevator.

And she couldn't blame Jarod. After all, Jarod was halfway around the world (he'd just called her to let her know), and even Jarod's preternatural abilities couldn't possibly extend that far.

Not even the cheerful people were Jarod's fault. Damn.

"I can't believe we're actually stuck in an elevator! I thought that only happened in movies."

This came from a ridiculously excited girl—she looked about twenty, with blond hair that might be natural. She was a little on the heavy side.

Her friend, almost identical, except she was skinny, grinned. "Too bad there aren't any cute guys stuck in here with us."

"That would be _awesome_!" The first girl sighed.

Miss Parker muttered, "I'm in hell."

She paced the side wall, as far away from the two girls as she could get. They glanced at her, but then decided to ignore her and continued to chat with each other, eventually getting off the topic of the elevator and settling back to their previous conversation, about their final exams.

Miss Parker had already called anyone who might possibly be able to get her out of the damn elevator faster, without luck. She had already yelled at Broots twice. All they could do now was wait, and no one knew how long it would take to get the elevator moving again.

So Miss Parker sat down, joining the two girls who had already staked their claim on the far corner. She stared at the no smoking sign and wished, for the millionth time, that she hadn't given it up. Then at least she could draw dirty looks from the girls, and maybe even have a good argument with the chipper little things. Ruin their day; derive some sort of sadistic pleasure from their unhappy faces.

She let her head fall back against the wall. The two girls looked over at her.

She heard a rustle.

"Do you have a headache?" This was from the skinny one. She held out a bottle of ibuprofen.

"God, yes."

Miss Parker took the bottle and pulled out four pills, swallowing them without water.

She handed the bottle back, realizing that the girl was looking at her with some sort of worry in her expression. Or maybe fear.

"Thanks," she said. "It's been a rough day."

* * *

They had a tip from one of the Centre's call lines. A man, matching Jarod's description, had been sighted in Massachusetts. Miss Parker was scheduling the jet before Broots had a chance to stammer out the whole story. 

Two hours later, they were in Massachusetts, at a run-down hotel, with nothing to show for the trip. Not even an old Jarod-haunt.

Broots and Sydney went back to the airport, but Miss Parker decided to visit an old friend at a bank downtown. She wasn't in.

Jarod called her right when she was waiting for the elevator.

"What."

"I plan these things for you, and then you end up in Massachusetts." His voice was light and teasing.

Miss Parker ranked this among her other bad days. It was pretty far down there.

"Oh. You mean I managed to ruin something for you? Sound the trumpets."

Jarod actually laughed.

"Well, you have a package waiting for you back at the Centre."

Miss Parker sighed. The elevator came. She debated saying something else, but instead just hung up.

She got into the elevator, making the two girls already inside shift to one side. Two floors down, the elevator jerked to a stop. The primary lights went out. The girls shrieked.

* * *

The ibuprofen wasn't helping, and Miss Parker thought that she just might start pounding her head into the wall behind her to try to knock herself out. 

The two girls across from her had fallen silent.

"So…what do you do?"

Miss Parker realized they were talking to her.

"I live in he…" She cut herself off. She didn't feel up to being a bitch today.

"I…acquire things for a company in Delaware."

The girls looked confused. Understandably.

"We get leads and then my job is to track them down."

The girls nodded. "Kinda like…antiques?"

Miss Parker laughed. "Sort of. Not necessarily that old, but something like that. Very valuable."

"Ah."

Miss Parker felt obligated to say something. Why, she didn't know. "You're in college."

They nodded again. "We go to Ashton College. I'm a business major." This was from the not-so-slender girl.

The other said, "I'm a communications major."

Miss Parker remembered being in college. Looking back, it seemed pointless, being filled with all sort of drivel the professors insisted every student learn, regardless of their majors. At the time, she had relished her relative freedom. It hadn't seemed so bad, not hearing from her father, when no one else really _liked_ hearing from their parents.

Miss Parker had nothing else to say. She thought she had done more than was necessary so far.

Apparently, the girls had run out of easy conversation material as well.

Her cell rang.

"What?"

"I just got a call from the building people."

It was Broots. Judging from his hesitancy, it was bad news.

"Spill it."

"It's uh. It's going to be another two hours. At least."

Miss Parker hung up. The girls were looking at her again. "Two hours. At least."

They groaned. Their earlier excitement seemed to have worn off.

The thin girl spoke up. "How terrible would it be if we opened one of the bottles of wine?"

"Well, we're not going to make the party…"

Miss Parker said, "Open the damn bottle before we lose our minds."

The girl brought out the bottle. And a wine opener.

"Just lucky we know our friend so well, eh?"

The two girls laughed. "To Kyle, who has no kitchen implements."

Thirty minutes later, a second bottle was produced.

Miss Parker leaned against the wall, her eyes closed, trying to pretend to be dismissive of the girls' insane stories. But the alcohol had loosened her up, and the stories they were telling seemed funny.

She laughed. Ten minutes later, she told them one of her own stories, about getting locked in the basement with a male cheerleader, a religion major, and a very nice Chianti her father had sent her as a birthday present. (Her twentieth birthday, mind you).

"I was trying so hard not to bring it out, because…oh, I don't even know."

The girls laughed. "The parallels to today are…" the first girl giggled.

Miss Parker's phone rang again.

"Yes?"

A pause. "Uh…they still can't get you out of there, Miss Parker."

"What's the problem?" Miss Parker said cheerfully.

More silence.

"Broots, you better juss…tell me."

"They uh, can't find the manager's keys."

Miss Parker stifled a hiccup. "Maybe they should call Jarod. He seems to be good at finding keys."

Broots said, "Are you _drunk_?"

Miss Parker looked at the three—was it really three?—empty bottles of wine on the floor.

"Shoulda just had one each," she muttered, then said into the phone, visibly composing herself. "Just get us out of here, fast. There are other doors to open ways than with keys." Did that sound right?

Silence. Broots finally said, "Okay, I'll do my best," in a small, worried voice.

Miss Parker let him hang up first, then had only a little bit of trouble locating the call end button. She laughed once at Broots's obvious confusion and once at the situation.

The girls giggled—but it seemed that they'd all reached the end of their story-telling mood. They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, then the doors opened suddenly, revealing Broots and a fireman standing about three feet up, on the next floor up.

Miss Parker hoisted herself up the wall, slipping her shoes back on.

"Oh, _finally_. Get me out of here."

After a comical attempt by Broots to lift her out, the fireman obliged and pulled her up quickly, then grabbed the other two girls as well.

Miss Parker turned to them and said, "Thanks for the wine, girls. Sorry you missed your party."

The girls exchanged a look. "Oh, this was way more fun."

Miss Parker grimaced at that. "Sure."

She walked in what was more or less a straight line to the stairs.

"Come on, Broots. I have a present waiting for me back home."

As Broots followed, he thought he heard one of the girls say, "She was nice, huh?"

Shaking his head, he came down the stairs after her, thinking he might never understand Miss Parker at all.


End file.
